Rund und Eckig (Circle and Square) by Kvĕta Pacovská

I’ve loved books by Kvĕta Pacovská for a long time since I picked one up by chance in a book store in Germany more than 10 years ago. Since then I’ve bought her books whenever I saw them and later started looking up online to see if there were more.  Unfortunately they are not very widely available and many of them are out of print, often only available in one language. Sad! So in the hope many of them become reprinted in many languages, I’d love to share the ones I have here with you to spread the word.

She was born in 1928 in Prague and she is still working there at 85. Bold colors, rough lines, use of geometric and abstract shapes, quirky characters with big grins all in childlike playfulness, these are her signature styles.  The books she makes are full of playful features that carry the spirit of the work in a really engaging way – you can expect many die cut features, pop-ups and use of mirrored surfaces to play with.

I think Rund und eckig is the first one I bought. It’s such a fun book for children to learn about shapes. If you don’t know German, it’s extra fun to guess the German words from the pictures. It was published in 1994.

Although it’s a book to hold and play with, I hope you enjoy looking at her illustrations, they always make me smile.

I guess she has been creating children’s books for almost half a century by now. You can easily imagine her influence and inspiration to many contemporary illustrators.

I’ll be sharing more books by Kvĕta one by one because each one deserves a close look!